


House of Horror, House of Hope

by 27dragons



Series: Tumblr Prompts [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: (see the prompt for details), Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff, Halloween, Happy Ending, Haunted House, M/M, Minor Violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, but bucky is stubborn, these are not things that go together well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 16:25:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12236475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/27dragons/pseuds/27dragons
Summary: The Engineering Department's haunted house is well-known for being the scariest one in the state, thanks to Tony's innovations. But Bucky is determined to prove that his PTSD won't stop him from having fun this Hallowe'en. It doesn't go quite as planned...A fill for the tumblr prompt, "Person A and a group of friends own a haunted house.Person A works as one of the scarers.Person B comes to visit haunted house for fun. Person B hands up punching Person A when they make them jumpscare too hard."





	House of Horror, House of Hope

“This year’s haunted house is going to be the best _ever_ ,” Tony enthused.

Rhodey finished nailing a support beam into place as if he were entirely oblivious to Tony’s quivering excitement, the bastard. Finally, he turned to Tony with an ill-concealed smirk. “Is it?”

“It is,” Tony said. “Ask me why.”

Rhodey’s eyes narrowed, and Tony tried to project innocent delight. It wasn’t something he was very good at, but Rhodey was a sure thing, anyway, so he didn’t try very hard. Finally, Rhodey sighed. “Why is it going to be the best, Tones?”

“Oh, dear, you shouldn’t have done that,” said a hollow, ghostly voice.

Rhodey jumped and looked up at the speaker over his head. “What the hell--”

“Hell, indeed,” the voice said, and chuckled wickedly.

“Okay, now that’s just creepy,” Rhodey said, taking a not-so-surreptitious step back. “But you know, Tones, we’ve tried having tailored ghost voices in rooms before, but it doesn’t work that well once everything’s dark and the usual spooky soundtrack is playing. It’s hard to discern--”

Tony waved it away. “This isn’t a voice actor,” he explained. “Rhodey, meet Just Another Vanishing Insane Spectre, or JARVIS.”

“Tony. Did you make an AI specifically to scare people? Seriously?”

“Actually,” Tony said, “I made him to keep watch. Remember last year, we had that one kid who fainted and nobody noticed for like fifteen minutes? He could’ve really gotten hurt if he’d fallen wrong! JARVIS will watch for people who get too freaked out and dispatch one of the staff to rescue them. He can monitor breathing and heart rate, core temperature, pupil dilation, all kinds of things!”

Rhodey eyed him suspiciously. “Is that right?”

“It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Rhodes,” JARVIS put in politely, without any echo or reverb on the voicebox this time.

“...Okay,” Rhodey said. “So what’s with the spooking?”

“Well, haunted houses are supposed to be a _little_ scary,” Tony said. “JARVIS has a range to work with -- if someone gets over a certain threshold, he’ll call for rescue. But if they’re _under_ a certain threshold, he’ll up the ante for them. I’m trying to figure out how he can alert the actors in each scene for performance levels as a group comes in, you know, or who the jumpscare guys should target.”

“You’ve put entirely too much thought into this already,” Rhodey said. “When did you start working on this?”

“September third,” Tony said.

“Of _last_ year,” JARVIS not-so-helpfully supplied.

“Okay,” said Rhodey. “We’ll give it a try for the first few dry-runs, anyway, see how it goes.”

***

“C’mon, Rogers, what are you, chicken?”

Steve had pulled to a stop as soon as he’d realized their destination. “No,” he said, staring at the house at the end of the block. “I’m just not sure you know what you’re doing. We should start with something a little less--”

“Give it a rest, wouldja, Stevie?” Bucky whined. “I’m sick of letting the damn brain goolies run my life. I can handle a damn haunted house.”

“Buck, this is literally the scariest haunted house on the campus-- no, in the whole _state_.” There was a sign on the lawn proclaiming exactly that, with a quote attributed to a local paper.

“The _engineering_ department,” Bucky scoffed. “I’m sure it will be technically amazing, but it’s not like they really know what they’re doing. I skipped the theater department’s house.”

“Which took second place,” Steve pointed out, “to, yes, the engineering department. Because the theater people have stagecraft _and_ great actors, but the engineers have Tony Stark.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “I’m going in the house, Steve. Are you coming with me, or not?”

“Fine,” Steve said, groaning. “Someone has to keep your traumatized ass out of trouble.”

Bucky resumed walking. Six months, he’d been back. Six months with only one arm and nothing to do but skulk around Steve’s place and do fucking PT and go to fucking counseling sessions and fucking occupational therapy. Six months of having to learn how to do shit with only one hand, six months of “working through the anger,” six months of the goddamn _nightmares_.

He wanted to do this. He wanted to do it because he’d always loved haunted houses as a kid, because he knew the blood and gore would look fake (he knew what _real_ gore looked like now) and because he wanted to be scared and know there wasn’t actually a threat.

The _good_ kind of scared. Not the split-second _I’m going to die_ scared he’d felt when he saw the explosion begin to blossom, or the horrible and unending _I’m never going to be normal again_ scared he’d endured for those weeks in the hospital. Just... startled, and then laugh it off.

The line for the haunted house stretched all the way down the block, though it moved at a decent clip. They saw more than a few groups of students leaving the house, still chattering excitedly about their favorite parts. None of them seemed traumatized.

“Last chance to back out,” Steve said as they approached the ticket booth that had been set up by the front door.

“Fuck you,” Bucky said, and stepped up to the window. A sign on the booth said that proceeds from the haunted house were going to sponsor the students’ trip to Washington for a Battle Bots tournament in November, and everything after that was going to several local charities. The Battle Bots line had been crossed out and someone had written in, _Achievement unlocked!_ Bucky handed over his five bucks and grinned toothily at Steve. “Come on, Steve, do it for the kids.” He tapped the name of the children’s hospital on the list of charities. Steve was a sucker for kids.

Steve rolled his eyes, but turned over his five bucks as well.

They walked into the house, and a pleasant zing of excitement and nerves ran down Bucky’s spine. He could totally do this.

The first couple of rooms were impressively built but basically warm-up rooms -- spooky but static scenes with eerie music and a slightly crackly soundtrack. Bucky leaned over the ropes to look at all the fine details that had been put in, and found himself chortling at the underlying signs that the place was a student house -- graffiti on the walls, suspicious stains that weren’t fake blood, a pizza box that someone had shoved under a couch.

There was a jumpscare from a guy in a vampire costume on the way to the third room that made Bucky’s heart lurch. The way Steve laughed nervously made him think Steve wasn’t unaffected, either.

The third room was the first live scene -- a pretty redhead being menacingly seduced by a guy dressed like a devil. It was creepy, but not especially scary. Especially not when Bucky caught sight of the devil’s perfect bubble butt. “That is not the kind of thrill I was expecting,” he muttered under his breath.

He might have said that a little louder than he meant to -- Steve didn’t seem to have caught it, but the devil suddenly broke the fourth wall to look straight at him. The devil’s eyes caught the mood lighting and seemed to glow in the dim room as he gave Bucky a seductive smirk. It seemed like exactly the wrong thing to do -- but then Bucky realized that the girl had slumped to the floor, eyes staring sightlessly, and suddenly Bucky was trapped between fear and wanting, and his heart was pounding in the best kind of way.

That little spike of adrenaline seemed to carry perfectly through the next several rooms -- a chainsaw murderer standing over dismembered and gory bodies who suddenly turned to swing the saw at them; an impressively-engineered convocation of mostly transparent ghosts; and a howling and slavering werewolf that tipped its head and then lunged at them just when Bucky had started to catch his breath again.

That was the secret, he thought giddily -- not the technical execution, though that was excellent. But someone had done an amazing job of engineering the timing and rhythm of the scariest scenes and jump scares.

There was a long, winding passage in complete darkness, then, only their hands on the painted foam walls to guide them. The weirdling music and spooky noises from the first couple of rooms was playing here, and that faint scratching sound suddenly seemed ominous rather than amateur. Was it Bucky’s imagination, or was the passage getting _narrower_?

It was.

He and Steve had to go one by one, and then they had to turn sideways, and then squeeze into the foam until it was pressing against them, and there was plenty of air but Bucky was gasping anyway.

“I see a light,” Steve called back to him, and Bucky nearly groaned aloud in relief. He pushed through the foam, following Steve, and they found themselves in a blacklit room, fluorescent shapes darting around wildly. Okay. Okay, this wasn’t so bad--

And that was when the disembodied voice started talking to them.

***

The hottie was definitely not dating the blond bombshell he’d come in with, Tony surmised, because not once had they reached for each other’s hands, or hugged, or shown any affection aside from the occasional friendly punch in the arm. That was good. Tony wasn’t enough of a dick to hit on a guy who was already dating someone.

Tony made JARVIS keep him updated on the hottie’s progress through the house and willed the clock to move a little faster -- it was only _minutes_ until his break, and if he moved fast, he’d be able to catch up with the hottie and flirt him into a date before he had to go take over random jumpscare duty from Bruce. _Finally_ , Clint and Natasha came into the Seductive Devil Room to relieve Tony and Pepper. (Natasha made an even better Seductive Devil than Tony, though Clint rather oversold his Innocent Victim schtick.)

“I’ll catch up with you later,” he told Pepper.

She kissed his cheek. “Have fun,” she said, and made her way down the hall toward the secret door that led to the kitchen.

Tony dashed through the main house, knowing JARVIS would tell the other performers that it was just him and not to bother. Though Rhodey, in the Werewolf Room, still growled at him. Tony grinned and flashed a thumbs-up before slipping into the Narrowing Hallway and jogging along, one hand trailing on the wall. JARVIS didn’t bother pushing the walls together for him, though as he got closer to the Whispering Room, the voice in his earbud said, “Sir, I might suggest--”

Tony didn’t pay any attention to JARVIS’ suggestion, whatever it was, because there was the Whispering Room, and there was the hottie, still with his friend.

_Seductive devil_ , he reminded himself. He slipped up behind them. “Welcome to my lair...”

The hottie whirled around and Tony’s world exploded in light and pain.

***

“Oh shit!” Bucky gasped. His heart was still pounding, his breath whistling in his lungs, but he’d--

It was the devil, the cute devil with the great ass, was on the floor, hands clasped over his face where Bucky had punched him, oh _shit_.

“Oh my god, shit, I’m so _sorry_ ,” Bucky said uselessly.

Steve was on his knees, urging the devil to roll over, to let Steve look at it. When had the normal lights come on? The weird noises had stopped, too, and--

The werewolf ran into the room, closely followed by Frankenstein’s monster. “Tony!” the werewolf barked, diving for the devil. Jesus, how had they gotten the word so fast?

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Frankenstein’s monster eyed Bucky, then took him gently by the arm and pulled him a few steps away. “Hey, look at me,” the monster said. “Are you okay?”

Bucky had a hard time dragging his gaze from the devil -- Tony? -- but when he did, he found that the monster had hazel eyes and a forehead crinkled with worry under the makeup. “I’m... I was...”

“Yeah, you were at the top of an adrenaline spike,” the monster said. “He added to your stress level at exactly the wrong instant, it sounds like. Are you okay _now_?”

“I... think so,” Bucky managed. He looked past the monster at Tony again. “Is he okay?”

Tony was sitting up now, the werewolf hovering protectively over him. Steve got up and went to the entryway -- which looked like a normal hall now, and not the foam hell Bucky’d had to squeeze through earlier -- to meet a woman dressed like a vampire, who handed over a cold pack.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” the monster said. “Come on, let’s get you somewhere a little calmer until you’re ready to head out.” He tugged gently at Bucky’s arm. Bucky didn’t resist -- being kicked out was the least he could expect after attacking a cast member; he’d be lucky if they didn’t sue him for it.

They hadn’t gone three steps when Steve appeared. “Are you kicking us out?” he asked, right on the verge of belligerent.

“Stevie,” Bucky said. “Don’t.”

“Not at all,” said the monster. “I _am_ getting you off the main floor, though, so we can resume operation.” He pushed aside a curtain and opened the door that was behind it. “In here.”

“Here” appeared to be a dorm room, unmade bunked beds against one wall and a pair of desks opposite them, piled high with books and laptops. A drafting table stood in one corner, a half-finished technical schematic taped in place. The monster pulled out a desk chair and swiveled it toward Bucky. “Here, have a seat. Catch your breath. When you’re ready, you can--”

“Bruce!” The door burst open to reveal the devil. Tony. He was still holding the ice pack over his face, but the other eye was wide and frantic. “What did you-- Oh, you’re still here, good!” He traded a few words with the monster, who shrugged and left. Tony turned back to Steve and Bucky. “I wanted to apologize.”

Bucky blinked. “What’re _you_ apologizing for? I’m the one who hauled off and decked you.”

“Sure, but I should’ve known better, JARVIS tried to tell me you weren’t up for any more, and I didn’t listen.”

“No one could’ve known,” Bucky argued. “I didn’t even realize how on-edge I was until it happened.”

“I knew,” Steve put in, and prudently stepped back before Bucky could kick him. “You’ve been on edge for _months_ , Buck. I told you a haunted house was a bad idea.”

Bucky groaned and put his face in his hands. “It was fine until...”

“Until I burst in and dropped that last straw on the camel’s back, huh?” Tony guessed. “Come on, let me make it up to you. Coffee?”

“Nah, I’m not s’posed to drink coffee anymore; the caffeine--” Steve kicked the chair Bucky was sitting in.

Bucky glared at him. “What? That’s what the doc said!” Steve raised an eyebrow and tipped his head toward Tony pointedly.

Tony, who behind the devilish makeup, was really cute. And had a hopeful look on his face.

Oh.

_Coffee_.

“I, uh, I mean, they’ve got hot chocolate and tea, too, though, right?” Bucky recovered lamely. Steve rolled his eyes, but forbore kicking the chair again.

Tony beamed. Huh, that fussy little goatee looked _real_. Bucky wondered if he’d grown it specially for the haunted house or if he always wore facial hair. It looked good on him, or would once the red facepaint had been cleaned off. Tony fished a phone out of his back pocket. “Let me just...”

Bucky fumbled out his own phone and they traded information. Maybe after they had coffee, Tony would let Bucky offer his own apology, in the form of dinner.

***

_One Year Later_

Jim Rhodes pulled his lip back in a convincing snarl, and Bucky made an effort to dodge, to run-- but it was too late; the werewolf had leapt on him and was enthusiastically gnawing at his shoulder.

Bucky wailed and thrashed to disguise him unhooking his prosthetic and puncturing the little bag of fake blood hiding at the top of it. One good yank, and a roll, and--

The trio of friends watching the tableaux screamed as Bucky’s arm came free, “ripped” off by the werewolf’s brute strength and razor-like teeth.

Bucky kept thrashing so they wouldn’t get a good look at his stump until the light went out to encourage the group to move along to the next room. As soon as they were gone, Bucky pulled off the top layer of the protective cloth and threw it into the trashcan disguised as a tree stump, and fitted another prepared cap over the end of his arm.

While he did that, Rhodes kicked the fallen leaves over the fake bloodstain to hide it and scrambled back into the shadows from whence he’d pounce.

Steve was in the kitchen; he didn’t like being “on stage”, but he had a real knack for gloriously gruesome makeup that looked distressingly real in the blacklights and strobes in the main part of the house. He was the one who’d come up with the quick-change caps for Bucky’s prosthetic to make it look like a real, bleeding arm when it “fell” off.

“Ten second warning,” JARVIS said into Bucky’s earpiece, and he jammed his hunter’s hat onto his head and snatched up the fake rifle, trying to suppress his grin. Working the haunted house was _tough_ , but so much fun.

Of course, it would be even more fun after the house had closed for the night, when Bucky could hunt down his devilishly handsome boyfriend. After hours of being gnawed on by a werewolf, Bucky was looking forward to getting his mouth on Tony.

 


End file.
